Professional Roles and Responsibilities

Navigator's Role in Adverse Event Management

Morganna Freeman, DO, FACP
Dr Morganna Freeman recommends that navigators develop a good triage system to effectively manage adverse events.

Oncologists and Navigators: A Needed Medical Collaboration that Strengthens Patient Care

John Parkinson
Medical oncologist Richard J. LoCicero, MD, believes navigators fill in the patient care blanks offering their value as coordinators, shoulders of support, and negotiators.

Role of Nurse Navigators in the “Readmission” Arena

Sharon S. Gentry, MSN, RN, HON-ONN-CG, AOCN, CBCN
Healthcare continues to change with a focus on prevention and outpatient care versus the long-standing way of reactive, inpatient acute care. There continues to be a role for inpatient care in oncology, but payer sources will reward the limitation of hospital visits in the future.

How Navigators Differ from Cancer Support Personnel

Lillie D. Shockney, RN, BS, MAS, HON-ONN-CG
One of the dilemmas navigators experience—being able to plan their time well, as well as to explain to others in designated blocks of time how their time is allocated on a given day or throughout a given week. Some time measurement is easy—3 hours spent conducting a community outreach event, for example.

What Do You Do?

Sharon S. Gentry, MSN, RN, HON-ONN-CG, AOCN, CBCN
After a recent navigation presentation, a participant approached me and commented, “Thank you, now I understand what our navigator does in her role.” The comment caused me to reflect...could that be the case where many of us work? Do people in our healthcare system know what we do?

What Do Navigators Do?

Sharon S. Gentry, MSN, RN, HON-ONN-CG, AOCN, CBCN
When working with systems that are contemplating a navigation program or when navigators visit our site because they have been hired to navigate but can not seem to find their niche, this is a question everyone asks at the beginning. It is stressed throughout the navigation world that there is not a standardized navigation program that can fit everywhere.

Update from the National Patient Leadership Summit

Sharon S. Gentry, MSN, RN, HON-ONN-CG, AOCN, CBCN
In the spring of 2010, the Academy of Oncology Nurse Navigators (AONN) was invited to participate in the National Patient Navigator Leadership Summit held in Atlanta, Georgia.